Instantons in Partially Broken Gauge Groups

We discuss the effects of instantons in partially broken gauge groups on the lowenergy effective gauge theory. Such effects arise when some of the instantons of the original gauge group G are no longer contained in (or can not be gauge rotated into) the unbroken group H. In cases of simple G and H, a good indicator for the existence of such instantons is the “index of embedding.” However, in the general case one has to examine π3(G/H) to decide whether there are any instantons in the broken part of the gauge group. We give several examples of supersymmetric theories where such instantons exist and leave their effects on the low-energy effective theory. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC03-76SF00098, and in part by the National Science Foundation under grant PHY-95-14797. Research fellow, Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science. Supported in part by an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship.